September 30, 2012

The Early Settlers
Some tribes who tracked game across
the grassy plains made their way eastwards. They joined the indigenous
people on the plateau overlooking the gorge. Crude flint implements for
chopping, scraping, skinning, sawing and stabbing attest to their
hunting and fishing activities. Their settlements show that at this time
they were little different from Egyptian Stone-Age settlements in
Libya, Morocco and western Europe; populations of African origin that
had settled on the Mediterranean. Other tribes made their way westwards
from Asia, across the Isthmus of Suez or the Straits of Bab el Mandab
in Egypt.

Ancient Egyptian

During the Final Paleolithic the weather
became drier. Forests became sparse. The savanna turned to dust. Water
holes dried up, and plants withered. The Egyptian Nile, flowing more
sluggishly, deposited ever larger amounts of sediment along its banks.
This sediment, and the earth carried to the Delta, was dark in colour
and became known as the Black Land, the life- giving land of Egypt, as
against the Red Land, the sun-baked desert where life shrivelled and
died.

Stone artifacts indicate that at first the
different tribal units remained isolated. The changing climatic
conditions, however, encouraged them to group together in times of
plenty to exploit the valley potential and split into smaller groups
during the drought or low-flood season to search for Egyptian food. As
the savanna became a desiccated waste, therefore, the hunting way of
life was abandoned, and the people began to adjust to valley
conditions; in so doing their lives became unavoidably bound to the rise
and ebb of the flood.

The level of the Egyptian Nile
in Egypt began to rise in July each year. At first the water spread
over the floodplain lowlands and the people withdrew to the lower
valley. Then, as the uplands became progressively submerged they moved
to the dry rim of the plateau. The flood reached its full height
towards the end of August when activities were limited to the pursuing
of hartebeest, wild ass and gazelle on the desert highlands.

At
the end of October the waters began slowly to recede, leaving behind a
fairly uniform deposit of silt as well as lagoons and streams that
became natural reservoirs for fish. This was the beginning of the
season of abundance. Settlements were made at the edge of the
floodplain where movements could be made either into the hills to hunt
game animals, or into the flood- plain itself which provided ample
resources for food-collecting. A variety of plants including wild
wheat, brush, bulrush and papyrus formed lush vegetation in the
enriched soil, and indigenous and migratory waterfowl were plentiful.
In April the Egyptian Nile was at its lowest level. Vegetation started
to diminish. Seasonal pools dried out. Game began to move southwards,
or scatter. Fishing was limited to the permanent pools, side channels
and the river. But the wooded areas near the river could be exploited
for turtles, rodents and Nile clams, which were collected in large
amounts. By July the Nile started to rise and the cycle was repeated.

Since
the rise and ebb of the flood occurred with tireless regularity, a
similar rhythm resulted in the lives of the people who depended on it.
This is one of the unique features of the ancient Egyptian
civilisation: that the bond between the Egyptian land and the people,
which was established as much by the geographical characteristics of
the land as from nature’s changeless cycles, affected their essential
character. It was a relationship so intimate that it subtly imprinted
itself on their lives and beliefs, and ultimately affected their
political and social patterns. Though three civilisations rose and fell
during Egypt’s 3,000 years of ancient history, and these were
interspersed with periods of anarchy and bloodshed, foreign occupation,
political corruption and centuries of decline, those distinctive
features of the culture which were the direct outcome of the natural
characteristics of the land endured.

The sun and the
Nile river, which together formed the dominating cause of existence,
made a profound impression on the people. They were two natural forces
with both creative and destructive power. For the life-giving rays of
the sun that caused the crop to grow could also cause it to shrivel and
die. And the river that invigorated the soil with its life-giving silt
could destroy whatever lay in its path or, if it failed to rise
sufficiently, bring famine. The sun and the river, moreover, shared in
the pattern of death and rebirth: the sun ‘died’ when it sank on the
western horizon only to be ‘reborn’ in the eastern sky the following
morning. And the ‘death’ of the land followed by the germination or
‘rebirth’ of the crops each year were directly connected with the
river’s annual flood. Rebirth was, therefore, a central feature of the
Egyptian scene. It was seen as a natural sequence to death and
undoubtedly lay at the root of the ancient Egyptian conviction of life
after death. Like the sun and the crops, man, they felt assured, would
also rise again and live a second life.

The climate in
semi-tropical, largely barren Upper Egypt bore no resemblance to the
temperate, fertile Delta. And the cultures that developed in each area,
like the land itself, each had a distinct character. Agriculture made
its first appearance in the Delta, which is not surprising in view of
the mild climate and the fact that grain, once planted, benefitted from
the natural irrigation of the Egyptian Nile. In Upper Egypt simple
farming communities were also established but due to the more hostile
environment the people remained pastoralists rather than farmers.

One
of the earliest Neolithic sites in Egypt is a large village called
Merimda in the western Delta. The houses were oval in plan and made of
lumps of clay over a structure of reeds. Grain a variety of
domesticated barley apparently brought from western Asia was stored in
large jars and baskets near the houses. The presence of polished stone
axes, fish-hooks and well- made arrowheads indicates however, that the
Egyptian people of Merimda, like their ancestors of the Late
Paleolithic, still hunted. They buried their dead around their
dwellings. They had few funerary gifts apart from flowers and, in one
tomb, a wooden baton. It is possible that this primitive community
buried their dead near their houses in the belief that the propitiation
of the dead was essential for the welfare of the community as a form of
ancestor worship.

Most of our knowledge of the
settlements in Upper Egypt comes from their burial customs, especially
from Badari for which the culture called the Badarian has been named.
The dead were buried in cemeteries at the edge of the desert. Though no
sacred images were found, we know from their simple graves that the
people believed in the afterlife, and believed also that this was
regarded as a prolongation of life on earth. It may have been the
natural desiccation of the bodies of the dead, in the dry heat of the
desert sand, into leatherlike figures, that first led the people to
believe that preservation of the body was essential for the afterlife.
Each corpse was wrapped in matting or skins and placed in a contracted
position, knees to chest, surrounded by worldly possessions: bone
needles and awls, weapons including spears and arrow-heads, jewellery,
including ivory bracelets, necklets, girdle beads and ivory combs
ornamented with birds, and fine thin-walled pottery, with black rim or
with rippled patterns, containing food, drink and ointments. Buried in
the same cemeteries as the people in Upper Egypt, and similarly wrapped,
were animals, such as cows, sheep and jackal. The cow later became
revered as the Egyptian goddess Hathor at Dendera. The ram became the
god Khnum at Elephantine. And the jackal was later to become Anubis,
the god of the necropolis, who was believed to watch over funeral rites
and guard the western horizon.

Architecture
Great strides were taken in the field of
architecture. The royal tombs of the first two dynasties were large
structures with the tomb chamber and surrounding rooms hewn deep in the
bedrock surmounted by a superstructure of the characteristic
‘palace-fagade’ panelling. The Egyptian tombs of the noblemen were
strong, low brick structures with rectangular ground-plan and sloping
walls for which the word ‘mastaba’ (bench) was coined by workmen
excavating under the French Egyptologist Mariette.

Ancient Egyptian Architecture

In
the 3rd dynasty Zoser’s architect, Imhotep, drew up plans for his
majestic funerary complex, the central feature of which was the
Egyptian Step Pyramid the first stone structure in history; Imhotep
chose a rectangular site on the Memphite necropolis and marked the
corners with stele bearing the names of Zoser and his two daughters. He
erected a 30ft high wall round the chosen site using the palace-fagade
panelling of the earlier dynasties. Imhotep then commenced excavation
of the substructure and lined the floor of the tomb chamber with
granite brought by river from the quarries of Aswan. A series of
chambers and a maze of corridors to house the furniture and effects of
the deceased were lined with blue tiles.

The
superstructure was at first a simple mastaba with a unique square
ground-plan. However, a second facing of limestone was then added, 2-3ft
lower than the original wall, thus forming a step. An extension to the
east rendered the mastaba rectangular. A series of pits led to a 90ft
gallery on the east of the mastaba and it may have been to incorporate
these into the tomb that the idea of constructing a second tier first
dawned on Imhotep. The ancient Egyptians were still inexperienced in the
use of stone, and Imhotep was not an architect with a blueprint so
much as an imaginative builder. It was when constructing the third tier
that he included in the overall design a mortuary temple and a whole
series of dummy buildings. When the fourth tier was raised, the
construction could finally be called a Step Pyramid of Zoser king. The
last two tiers were added by enlarging slightly on either side. The
six-step pyramid was encased in a final layer of fine limestone and
rose majestically above the surrounding wall. It was approached through
a gateway in the girdle wall, leading to a colonnaded hall which gave
on to a Great Court.

The enormous architectural
significance of Zoser’s mortuary complex lies in the fact that Imhotep
drew inspiration from the contemporary houses and palaces which have
all perished. He transcribed into masonry all light, perishable
materials and though his were the first large-scale experiments in
stone, he nevertheless provides us with simple elegance and mature
expression which is characteristic of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.

Less
than a century lies between the construction of Zoser’s Step Pyramid
at Sakkara and that of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. The mastery
of stone is reflected, however, in several stages of development.
Zoser’s successor, Sekhemkhet, also had a Step Pyramid (i). Khaba had
what is now known as the Layer Pyramid (2), at Zawiyet el Aryan between
Giza and Abu Sir. Nebka’s ‘Unfinished Pyramid’, in the same area, is
believed to have been planned on the same lines as Zoser’s. A change
came with Huni, the last pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty. His pyramid at
Meidum (3), though appearing somewhat like a tower today, was the first
true pyramid. It was constructed in the form of an eight-step
pyramidal monument at a steep angle of 51^° and, after the steps were
filled in, the whole was carefully dressed in stone. The transition
having been achieved, Senefru’s two pyramids at Dashur, known as the
Bent Pyramid (4) and the Northern Pyramid (5), show a striving for an
architectural ideal that was finally achieved with the perfect symmetry
of the three Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau.

There
are no written or pictorial records of the methods used for the
planning and construction of the pyramids. Clearly as much engineering
know-how as brute force was necessary to raise them. Following such
basic considerations as the choice of site on the western bank of the
river, on bedrock free from defects, well above the Egyptian valley but
in close proximity to the river for easy conveyance of stone was the
task of levelling and smoothing the plateau to within a fraction of an
inch and orientating the four cardinal points with a maximum error in
alignment of little over one-twelfth of a degree.

The
building of the Egyptian great pyramids on the Giza, has been
extensively written about. Some 2,400,000 blocks of sandstone were
quarried from Tura on the eastern banks of the Nile, each weighing an
average of 8 tons, they were transported to barges and sailed across
the turbulent river in full flood. They were then lowered on to rollers
and probably manoeuvred up an earth ramp to reach the plateau.

Ancient Egyptian Architecture

Even
stones weighing as much as 16 tons were brought into contact as close
as one-five-thousandth of an inch. The pyramids are now stripped of
their smooth outer casings of fine-quality, exquisitely fitted,
polished limestone. The great pyramid of Khufu once rose to a height of
483 feet and its base covered 13 acres. It is difficult, even today,
to visualise the strength of a state able to support such projects, let
alone provide the skill and technical ability to raise them.

A
causeway once linked the mortuary temples of the Egyptian pyramids and
the valley temples on the river’s edge. Khafre’s causeway was
constructed of white limestone, its lower blocks let into the rock
surface beneath. His valley temple was encased in granite from the
quarries of Aswan. This was a final step in the mastery of stone: the
finest-quality raw material with an emphasis on straight lines, both
perpendiculars and horizontals. The ‘granite temple’ is an example of
simple, massive elegance. The statues which decorated the interior were
lit by the use of oblique slits forming roof windows between the level
of the central aisle of the court and the lower roof on either side.
The use of sunlight for illumination was an important feature of
ancient Egyptian architecture.

Ancient Egyptian Pyramids age IntroductionAncient Egyptian history
covers some 3,000 years, from the legendary King Menes (3100 BC), who
united the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, to the conquest of
Alexander the Great (332 BC). This period has been roughly divided into
thirty dynasties, which have been grouped into three ‘Great Periods’, as
shown opposite.

Each of the three Great Periods bears a
distinctive character. The Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Age, is considered
by many historians as the high-water mark of achievement. A series of
vigorous and able monarchs established a highly organised, centralised Egyptian government
which saw a rising tide of productivity in all fields. It was a culture
of great refinement, an aristocratic era, which ended in an explosion
of feudal disorder, anarchy and bloodshed. The Middle Kingdom saw the
country restored to national discipline by force of arms. The royal
house was reestablished under strong leadership.

Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

Reorganizations throughout the Egyptian land was
immediately reflected in an artistic and architectural revival, massive
irrigation projects and a literary breakthrough. This period, when
powerful monarchs ruled a feudal state, came to an end when the Hyksos, a
warlike people who had settled in the Delta, successfully challenged
Egyptian authority. Following the war of liberation Egypt emerged with a
strong government and a regular army, heralding an era of international
trade and foreign expansion. This was the New Kingdom, when Egypt
controlled a vast empire and tributes and booty from the conquered
nations and vassal states poured into the state capital at Thebes. It was a period of unparalleled grandeur, strength , wealth and prestige.

The three Great ancient Egyptian Periods
are clearly divided by a period of anarchy when the provincial powers
rose against the crown and democratic values were voiced for the first
time (1st Intermediate Period) and a period of foreign occupation (2nd
Intermediate Period). It is not surprising, therefore, that due to the
different political, religious, cultural and social forces at work; each
of the cultural peaks should bear a distinctive character. The problem
of deciding which should be described as most representative of the
ancient Egyptian civilisation is easily resolved. The Old Kingdom is
chosen as the classic standard; it was the period in which the hard core
of Egyptian thought and institution was formulated; and the time which
the ancient Egyptians themselves regarded as a model throughout their
history:

After the fall of the old Kingdom, during the 1st Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt,
a sage said to his son: ‘Truth (Maat) comes to him well- brewed after
the manner of his ancestors . . ' and a priest called Khe-kheperre-Soneb
looked back and said: ‘Would that I had unknown utterances, sayings
that are unfamiliar, even new speech that has not occurred {before),
free from repetitions, not the utterance of what has long passed, which
the ancestors spake.'

In the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt,
when the title ‘Repeating of Births' (ie renaissance) was adopted and
the monarchs maintained their control over the feudal state by using
many of the methods practised in the Old Kingdom, a harper sang: ‘I have
heard the sayings of Imhotep and Hardedef with whose words we speak so
often . .

In the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt the
upper classes criticised Amon (the god of the conquering heroes) as the
usurper of the ‘true religion'. And when Ikhnaton, the world's first
monotheist came to the throne he emphasised the connection between his
new sun worship and the old sun cult at Heliopolis. In fact he built his
sun temples on the same lines as the 5th dynasty temples at Abu Sir.
And the symbol of his god, the Aten, was reminiscent of the description
of the Sun-god in the 5th dynasty Pyramid Texts: ‘The arm of the sun
beams'.

After the Period of Decline in ancient Egypt, during the 26th dynasty
revival known as the Saite Period, efforts were made to recapture ‘the
time of the ancestors' .... for lo, their words abide in writing; open,
that thou mayest read and imitate knowledge . . .’ And, indeed, the
Saite rulers recopied the ancient texts and there is even evidence that
they excavated a gallery beneath the Step Pyramid of the 3rd dynasty pharaoh Zoser to see how it was built.

The ancient Egyptians believed that there was once a Golden Age,
‘The First Time’ when the principles of justice reigned over the land.
What was actually meant by this oft-repeated phrase in ancient Egyptian
texts is not known. It implies the beginning of an event and was often
taken to mean ‘The Beginning’ or Creation. In fact the Egyptian priest Manetho, who wrote the history of ancient Egypt
in Greco-Roman times, saw it as the pre-historic period which was
filled with dynasties of gods and demi-gods. ‘The First Time’ might,
however, simply be recapitulations which reflected the Egyptians’ pride
in their own culture; a confirmation that order once existed.

The Golden Age of ancient Egypt
when ‘Maat (Justice) came from heaven and joined those who lived on
earth’, may be the Old Kingdom civilisation, the purest period of
Egypt’s ancient history, which rose to its peak and collapsed while
Babylonia was still the scene of battles between city states fomented by
petty local interests, and while Europe, America and most of western
Asia were inhabited by Stone-Age hunters.